Political, Social, and Religious Ravings from a Texas Conservative

It’s Raining – IRS Director Holly Paz

Never ask a liberal or a bureaucrat (redundant) how stupid do you think we (the public) are; because you probably won’t like the answer.

Case in point is the latest smoky posterior blowing attempted by IRS director Holly Paz, (she reported to IRS Commissioner Lois Lerner, who is currently on indefinite paid vacation). Holly Paz, I believe, still works for the IRS but has been reassigned. To date… no one has actually been fired or paid any price for the crimes committed.

According to Holly Paz, the term “tea party” was used within the IRS to describe ANY (left or right) organization suspected of political activity. Kind of like “Coke” is a general term for soda and “Kleenex” is a general term for tissue.

I call bullshit!

Ms. Paz… don’t you think if that were true there would be a few, just a few, liberal groups in the list of hundreds that were held up and questioned and put through hell. There weren’t; because YOU ARE LIEING, while under oath to Congress, its call perjury.

All I’ve seen from all the IRS personnel testifying is arrogance and indignant outrage that they are even being questioned concerning IRS scrutiny of conservative groups. Yes, they did it; but that was their job after all; to protect their interests from the enemies of the state and Party. And I guarantee you; they think they have the moral high ground in doing so. The smugness of their lies show it.

But as I’ve said about the left before, you have to admire her cojones. With a straight face, she goes before Congress and the American people, whips it out, and pisses all over everything while humming “Singing in the Rain”. These people have no shame, nor respect for the public they “service”. The arrogance and bald-faced lies are astounding.

Personally, I hope you (Ms. Paz) and your boss can someday share a jail cell.

I’m afraid you lost me… You’ll have to be more specific. Exactly what event or information was leaked to ProPublica and when?

The Tea Party groups have been complaining officially since 2010. The IRS finally started an internal audit a year ago which confirmed the abuse (though it claimed erroneously that there was no evidence of political targeting) and released the findings in May, 2013. The IRS completely denied the allegations until a week or two before the report was released. It was then that Lois Lerner did a staged media event for damage control purposes that didn’t work and the snowball grew from there.

Of course nothing will ever change my mind that PBS and NPR need to be defunded. They’ll do just fine on their own.

I agree that PBS and NPR do not need public funding, though frankly that funding is miniscule. The federal budget for PBS last year was $26 million and NPR $22 million out of a $3.6 trillion budget. I bet the fed gov’t spent more on office chairs.

They already do commercials (sponsorships). Their viewers/listeners are educated and have money, by and large. A good target for any business. I think they could do it with classy standards, so they don’t scare off their loyal viewers like me, who don’t like the typical screaming ads we hear on other TV/radio stations.

The problem with conservatives perpetually attacking NPR/PBS is it’s petty, and makes them look crazy to moderates who like Jim Lehrer and Big Bird.

Back to ProPublica. The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year. This is what kicked off the sh*t storm. Without that, all we’d have is vague complaints with no evidence.

However, it is also true that dozens of nonprofits misled the IRS their political activity in the lead-up to that election. Unlike SuperPACs, they do not have to reveal donors. According to the same ProPublica report, 84% of those groups were conservative, and poured $322 billion into the 2012 election. That’s a much bigger abuse of federal support (through tax-dodging) than PBS and NPR.

So, big picture, there absolutely was abuse of the nonprofit system by conservative, tea party groups in 2012. It would be rational to profile them, given that trend. But, it’s not how the gov’t is supposed to work, and they were wrong to do so.

&^%$@! I just realized what you were talking about and who ProPublica is. They’re the leftist group funded by the likes of George Soros. My apologies. I somehow interpreted your comments as ProPublica being some noble and honest liberal group looking into those poor, poor, conservatives whose civil rights were being violated by the IRS; when they were nothing more than willing accomplices to a crime and admitted it when they got caught.

For clarity…Yes they received the documents in late 2012 as part of the IRS abuse. The IRS and ProPublica intended to use the information they got (illegally) to smear the conservative organizations. This wasn’t an IRS whistleblower (as I had incorrectly interpreted your comment) trying to do a good deed and get the word out that abuse was happening. This was and IRS leftist trying to give dirt to a dishonest leftist organization.

And these dirt-bags at ProPublica have ties to Frontline and PBS!? All the more reason to abolish funding…

I have to disagree with you concerning this being what started the “sh*t storm”. Few had heard anything about ProPublica and the illegal information released to them by the IRS until after the storm broke in mid-May. [There was NO news of targeting (as a fact) before mid-May, 2013. Search Google for “IRS PBS” and you find plenty of news stories about the scandal and how ProPublica was involved… ALL after May 13, 2013. Now if I could have found one from late 2012 or early 2013; I might agree with you. It’s not there.]

Even if the leak happened, the news was going to come out when the IRS had to release the audit results. But it would have been nice is someone had actually performed some sort of “investigative journalism” and reported it ahead of time. I just see no evidence of that happening. In fact the MSM worked with Lois Lerner by asking a planted question at a staged new conference to leak the story and do damage control.

In a nut-shell I’m saying I never heard of this leak until after the story broke; and then the news was they admitted to being part of the scandal.

>> However, it is also true that dozens of nonprofits misled the IRS their political activity in the lead-up to that election. Unlike SuperPACs, they do not have to reveal donors. According to the same ProPublica report, 84% of those groups were conservative, and poured $322 billion into the 2012 election. That’s a much bigger abuse of federal support (through tax-dodging) than PBS and NPR.

Assuming I would trust anything reported from these bozos… but OK, let’s assume…

That is what this is all about. The left is being “petty” in the same way that we on the right are being petty about NPR/PBS. “They have an advantage… it’s not fair… we need to stop it.” The difference? The left had the insiders to execute a plan to stop it AND they broke the law to do it.

The last time I checked we on the right didn’t have the IRS insiders capable for demanding the list of all donors to NPR/PBS… and having them audited and harassed by various government agencies.

>> So, big picture, there absolutely was abuse of the nonprofit system by conservative, tea party groups in 2012. It would be rational to profile them, given that trend.

Abuse by these groups was not the criteria by which the IRS targeted them. Abuse was not even a consideration in their decision to profile them. The name indicating political standing was the overriding criteria used.

>> But, it’s not how the gov’t is supposed to work, and they were wrong to do so.

I’m glad we can agree on that. Hopefully we can also agree that the only way to right this wrong and assure it isn’t likely to happen again is serious jail time for the guilty.